Night Lights Classic Jazz

Lord Buckley As Go Man Van Gogh

Posted September 17, 2008

Lord Buckley is known best for his hip-speak riffs on Jesus, Shakespeare, the Gettysburg Address, Edgar Allen Poe, and other high-canonical texts.

There seems to have been a bit of a Lord Buckley revival in recent years, which is a good thing. Buckley, by many accounts the original hipster comedian, had a storied career and is known best for his hip-speak riffs on Jesus, Shakespeare, the Gettysburg Address, Edgar Allen Poe, and other high-canonical texts. As an underground icon Buckley had a wide reach–singer Anita O’Day counted herself among his young friends and fans during their Chicago days, and Beatle George Harrison was such a devotee that he named one of his solo songs after Buckley’s nickname for a former dwelling (“Crackerbox Palace”); it’s also always fascinating to see him surfacing in the popular culture of his times (as in this appearance on Groucho Marx’s “You Bet Your Life”). Check Buckley out in this 1959 Beany and Cecil cartoon, providing the voice for “Go Man Van Gogh,” aka the Wildman of Wildsville. (And dig all the crazy hip references… I especially liked the “Birdland” throwaway.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYTWETp2srE

Special thanks to musician Jim Sangrey for sending this link, which comes from the Saturday Morning Blog.

Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, David Brent Johnson moved to Bloomington in 1991. He is an alumnus of Indiana University, and began working with WFIU in 2002. Currently, David serves as jazz producer and systems coordinator at the station. His interests include literature, history, music, writing, and movies.

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